.

The cottage never had more than two owners, for it could not hold
up that heavy roof on its walls of reeds and clay for more than two
generations. But as long as it stood, it was owned by poor widows.
The second widow who lived there delighted in watching the burdocks,
especially in the autumn, when they were dried and broken. They
recalled her who had built the cottage. She too had been shrivelled
and dry and had had the power to cling fast and adhere, and all her
strength had been used for her child, whom she had needed to help
on in the world. She, who now sat there alone, wished both to weep
and to laugh at the thought of it. If the old woman had not had a
burr-like nature, how different everything would have been! But who
knows if it would have been better?

The lonely woman often sat musing on the fate which had brought her
to this spot on the coast of Skone, to the narrow inlet and among
these quiet people. For she was born in a Norwegian seaport which
lay on a narrow strip of land between rushing falls and the open
sea, and although her means were small after the death of her
father, a merchant, who left his family in poverty, still she was
used to life and progress. She used to tell her story to herself
over and over again, just as one often reads through an obscure
book in order to try to discover its meaning.

The first thing of note which had happened to her was when, one
evening on the way home from the dressmaker with whom she worked,
she had been attacked by two sailors and rescued by a third. The
latter fought for her at peril of his life and afterwards went home
with her. She took him in to her mother and sisters, and told them
excitedly what he had done. It was as if life had acquired a new
value for her, because another had dared so much to defend it. He
had been immediately well received by her family and asked to come
again as soon and as often as he could.

His name was Boerje Nilsson, and he was a sailor on the Swedish lugger
"Albertina." As long as the boat lay in the harbor, he came almost
every day to her home, and they could soon no longer believe that
he was only a common sailor. He shone always in a clean, turned-down
collar and wore a sailor suit of fine cloth. Natural and frank, he
showed himself among them, as if he had been used to move in the
same class as they. Without his ever having said it in so many
words, they got the impression that he was from a respectable home,
the on